Brickyard notebook: Montoya almost 'the man'

Monday

Jul 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2007 at 2:14 AM

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – Notes from the Brickyard 400

Tim Cronin

When Juan Pablo Montoya came down the front straightaway to win the 2000 Indianapolis 500, car owner Chip Ganassi radioed to him, "You are the greatest race driver in the world! You are the man!"
Ganassi almost was able to repeat that sentiment Sunday, when Montoya, in his first stock-car venture at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, finished second in the Brickyard 400.
Montoya, who spent the past six seasons in Formula One -- his best U.S. Grand Prix finish at Indianapolis was fourth -- started second and ended up in the same place. But along the way, he threatened the leaders on numerous occasions, and he scored his best finish on an oval in Nextel Cup competition. He had won a Busch Series road race in Mexico City earlier in the year.
"Normally, I get to 12th and you try to get runs on people and you can't," Montoya said. "Today, it was awesome. I could really go at it."
Montoya's big break was having a tire blow out while he was in the pit lane, approaching his stall. That prevented an accident and kept him in the race. Effective pit crew work finally eliminated the understeer that had plagued him, and he was able to chase the Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart in the final laps.
"I think we're getting there," Montoya said. "It shows where the team is going. It shows the potential is there."
It Was So Hot ...
Jimmie Johnson and blown tires are getting too familiar with each other. He was knocked out of the 400 by a blown left front as he entered Turn 3 on the 61st lap. A similar crash came about two weeks ago in Joliet.
Then, he banged an elbow on his seat. This time, the circumstances could have been dire. The impact cracked his fuel pump open, starting a fire that spread under the car and briefly visited the cockpit.
"The flames had me nervous inside the car," Johnson said. "I lost some eyelashes and the side of my face got pretty hot. That's the first time I've had flames inside the car."
Johnson, who win last year's 400, had to ride with the flames for several hundred yards as the car hugged the wall, then crossed the track and stopped in the grass. He exited the car prompted and trotted 30 feet away.
"It's feast or famine here for us," Johnson said.
Bleeping Good Fun
Tony Stewart won't hear from the FCC, but he might hear from NASCAR after using a barnyard expletive after winning the race.
Asked by an ESPN reporter what winning at Indianapolis for the second time meant to him, Stewart said, "This one's for all the fans in the stands who root for me and take the (bleep) from everybody else."
The race was televised on cable, so ESPN can't get fined for an inadvertent expletive on live TV, but NASCAR's fined drivers, notably Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had spoken similarly on the air in recent years.
Asked about it later, he quipped, "A little late to be concerned about it now, isn't it? It pretty much is what it is. Whatever happens, they still can't take this trophy away from me."
Around Gasoline Alley
While ESPN tried its best to ignore the empty seats -- host Brent Musburger even said, "There's not a seat to be had here" -- the attendance of approximately 210,000 was the smallest of the 14 Brickyards, and the smallest for any 400 or Indianapolis 500 since perhaps the early 1960s. Tens of thousands of empty seats were evident in the grandstands hugging Turn 3 and the North Chute, along with many seats in the lower rows along the front straightaway. The track seats 257,325, according to The Indianapolis Star... The smaller crowd was reflected in less than two dozen arrests for disorderly conduct overnight in the vicinity of the track.
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